Nonconformist Obituaries: How Stereotyped Was Their View of Women?

Abstract

Nonconformity was a general term which, by the mid-nineteenth century, was used collectively of the evangelical dissenting churches and of Methodism and its offshoots.¹ The 1851 census, despite the difficulties in interpreting its data, showed that, measured in terms of Sunday attendances, Nonconformity had grown dramatically in the first part of the nineteenth century, and was challenging the dominance of the Established Church.² Well over half of those attending Nonconformist chapels would have been women, and to study Nonconformist women is therefore crucial for that reason alone.³